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PRESS RELEASES
Released: January 28, 2008
LAKELAND - Florida Southern College is in mourning again. A student has died, the second in the last few months.
"We're all trying to get through it together," said Ashley Burke.
Flowers are lying outside the Sigma Chi fraternity house, which just lost a former vice-president.
Michael Szwed died over the weekend after falling on a slip and slide during a Greek sponsored event. Investigators say Szwed was out drinking until early Saturday morning. They say he went to sleep for a few hours, and then began drinking again at 7:30.
A little later, he went to Bid Day, the day when fraternities ask new members to join. A fellow student told investigators that he took a hard fall on the slip and slide, and then went home alone.
That night, his roommate found him dead.
In an his initial report, The Polk Medical Examiner says Szwed died from a ruptured spleen, but stopped short of saying it was from his fall earlier in the day.
It could take more than a month for the ME to publish his final report. Bid Day is the highlight of rush week, and a big event for fraternities, sororities, even administrators.
"It was wonderful to be there," said Parker Willis, the president of Sigma Chi.
Only later, did the campus learn that Bid Day 2008 would be remembered for something else. Earlier this month, two Florida Southern twins had a terrible car crash on their way back to school. One was killed. The other survived.
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Florida Southern only has 2400 students- two deaths in a 3 week period. Its sad.
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